


Back on Track

by facelesshellion



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Coping, Gen, moving forward, unspoken feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facelesshellion/pseuds/facelesshellion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The epiphany that finally helped John start to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back on Track

**Author's Note:**

> Alright! I know it's been awhile since I updated my other works, and I apologize, but it's been a really busy month. Once Thanksgiving break comes around I'll have more time to work on everything. 
> 
> But I couldn't resist using the little free time I had to write this. Almost Human premiered this week and DEAR GOD I loved it so. It's a little cheesy and not very complicated but I love it. The ethical issues alone make me drool. 
> 
> So, here's some Kennex loving~ Thanks for taking the time to click on this, I hope you guys enjoy!

For weeks, John can’t put his finger on it. 

Working with Dorian had been weird from the start. A (not synthetic, Dorian doesn’t like that word) guy made out of metal and plastic that doesn’t act like a complete jackass had been good weird. The MX’s had always bothered him. Even before he lost his partner, he struggled to work with them. 

Dorian’s decent, though. He’s new to being a cop, and being part super computer doesn’t change the fact that experience helps. A lot. So he’s decent, not great, and John can deal with that. 

The bad weird had been being called out on his past-unorthodox-and-into-illegal-territory and, inexplicably, feeling guilty. 

A fucking synthetic- 

Whoops. Try again. 

A fucking, goddamned, bastard of an android that doesn’t even have a heart, more or less told him to get one himself. 

He understands the irony, no need to go twelfth grade literature analysis on his ass. 

So maybe it’s the weird “everything-else” that keeps him from realizing what’s happening sooner. Maybe it’s him subconsciously brushing the instances off as “fucking weird robot shit that I can’t do anything about so just ignore and accept it” and leaving it at that. 

Standing in front of his physician, hearing the shocking news that he had, in fact, gained (a not-so-inconsiderable amount of) weight since his last visit gave the epiphany a jumpstart. 

“Mr. Kennex, this is good, I assure you. You were treading into unhealthily thin the last time you were here and I’m glad to see that you’ve been taking better care of yourself.” 

He doesn’t look at the doctor, or the ground (damn leg could go screwy at so much as a blink in its direction so he avoids looking down. Dorian always gives him a disappointed glance when he notices but he’d rather be psychologically screwed than have his damn leg act up in the middle of a case) before replying, “Yeah. Finally getting back on track. It’s been easier lately.” 

Scanners disappear into drawers, he’s handed a renewed prescription for his sleep aid and migraine medication, ushered back into his normal clothes, and shoved out the door with a hefty bill tucked into his pocket. 

Vultures. Every last one of them. 

He thinks for a long time on his weight. In the safety of his own bathroom, doors locked and curtains draped over the windows, he strips down. Less clinically than he had at the doctor’s office but infinitely warier. 

Now that he’s looking for it, he can see where he’s filled out. His arms look less like muscular twigs and more like chunks of flesh. His palm lies on his stomach, still flat but with a little hint of softness around the edges. 

He looks good. 

He’s not so humble that he won’t admit that. He had worked after his two-year nap to build up his muscle again. 

Not that he had to work too much. Medical technology allowed him to stay fit while asleep on a bed with only slight deterioration. When he woke up, his head had been foggy and disoriented but his body felt like he had just been lying in an awkward position for a couple of hours. It had reminded him of the soreness he felt in college when his then-best-friend’s girlfriend asked him to model for her art class. 

Shifting his weight onto his synthetic leg doesn’t feel as sharply as it usually does now that the body fits it. Before, it had looked lanky and disproportionate to his torso and arms. 

Now, healthy and fit as a fucking fiddle, it just looks like he stuck his equally healthy leg into a tub of silver paint. Luminescent, with a hint of circuitry showing the unnatural undertone, but overall- 

He looks good. 

He looks more human than he had been feeling in the past however-many months. More human than he had been feeling talking to the department’s psychologist. More human than he had been feeling when the other detectives whispered about his guilt “behind his back.” 

He looks like a man. A man who has issues but can get back on his feet and move forward. 

John Kennex finally meets his stare in the mirror and cracks a small, hesitant grin. 

 

After his epiphany, he rides the high for at least the rest of the night. Up until he gets into bed (where, for the first night in a long, long time, he crawls into without pajama pants), he revels in self-love. 

Lying on his back and listening to the hum of the building’s air conditioning, it’s there that he realizes where his newfound health (humanity) originated. 

Doctor What’s-His-Name had complimented him on taking care of himself, but he hasn’t changed anything. When he’s on his own, he’ll order take out and sit on the couch and eat maybe half a serving of General Tso’s. Not exactly an A+ on the scale of healthy lifestyles to impress doctors with. 

More nights than not, however, he ends up with Dorian. 

The damn android that- 

Back up. Redo. 

The damn bastard, who always seems to have a distraction waiting for him when he starts spiraling, drags him out after cases without him noticing. The damn bastard, who always slides a plate of food from god-knows-where to rest near his elbow when they are stuck with countless forms to fill out before the next day, might have something to do with it. 

Again, he notes the irony. No need to make it more obvious. The robot teaching the human to live again: a comedy in three parts. 

Just like a bad movie from the 2020’s. 

The doctor should have been praising the weird bot who dragged John out of his apathy. 

So if the next day, John claps a hand on Dorian’s shoulder as a greeting instead of the normal grunt, says, “Hey man, how you doing?”, grins instead of grumbles- 

Well, Dorian shouldn’t look so surprised. 

The damn colloquialism routine is infectious. 

And if he drags Dorian out of the MX hidey-Hell-from-down-under in a few weeks and has a charging station installed into his apartment for the guy, that’s not a big deal either. 

It’s easier, actually, having them live together. No more having to stop by HQ before going on a case or vice-versa. 

Really, they’re saving a fortune on gas by not making so many trips. Plus, Dorian, for whatever reason, adores cooking even though he doesn’t eat, and it’d be a waste if he didn’t have a roommate to feed. 

It’s ecofriendly and keeps anyone from giving the “there are starving kids that would love to eat that” speech to Dorian. 

The DRN might explode from guilt if someone said that to him. John swears the guy’s emotions are limited to “snarky”, “irritated”, and "intense guilt." 

(Although maybe not. Dorian has been looking increasingly smug every time he brings John food and John doesn’t complain or trash it. He doesn’t tell John when he scans the human anymore, but John’s not dumb enough to think that he isn’t. He must know that John’s been feeling infinitely better. The happiness Dorian exudes has been palpable enough that other officers sometimes forget he’s a DRN and not completely one of them.) 

And if John sits in Rudy’s place by Dorian’s head until he wakes up from the latest upgrade, holding his shoulder and rubbing circles every couple of minutes, maybe he’ll decide to thank the bot when he wakes up. 

Maybe not. The lack of leg-beeping says everything, after all.


End file.
